Friday, March 17, 2006

First Week Survival!

You know, I'm pretty sure that in a drunken stupor last night I posted something but I'll be damned if I can find it, so maybe it got blown away.So I made it to the end of the week! Shaken and stirred, dazed and confused, cross-eyed and painless, but alive. Work, as I imagined, was pretty damned tough, but I had a couple of successes and no huge failures, so I'm already a frickin' hero. Hell, I suspect that as long as I didn't drop trou in front of the customer and didn't try to jump the security turnstile on the way in, I'd be a hero.I am embarrassed to say that after spending all that time looking at all the great places to eat around here, I've eaten at Elephant & Castle (small chain I'm familiar with from Ottawa), Subway, TGI Fridays, the hotel restaurant and only once at a local place. Had dinner at the bar at Friday's last night watching the tournament and hanging out with the locals (and drinking way too heavily). Tonight I decided to take care of myself and walked over to Whole Foods and came back with sushi, a really nice salad and a six pack of Sierra Nevada and have settled in for some basketball-watching. I figure I did my St. Patrick's Day celebrating last night.Obviously I'm going to have to do a lot of work this weekend but I do intend to get my ass out and actually see some of this part of Chicago. It's going to be cold but I HAVE to get out and run along Lake Michigan and after that I plan to do a lot of walking and picture-taking.I think this will be much easier in a couple of weeks when we get into the apartment, which I've now got settled. On April 1 we move into a 1 bedroom apt at One Superior Place on the 45th floor. With that I'll be able to concentrate a lot less on survival (where am I going to eat? am I going to work out?) and more on enjoying being here. I say "we" 'cause my sweetie will be up here with me for awhile after next week!That's not to say that I haven't enjoyed it here - the people at work are fine of course and I had a good time hanging out and talking hoops with the locals last night. Tuesday night was awesome - walked all the way down to Hubbard to find Andy's Jazz Club which I remembered from our trip up here a dozen years ago. Barbara the bartender was great, the music was quite nice and the food was actually pretty decent. I'm looking forward to hanging out there as often as I can afford.More later after I see if I can get the Carolina game off the CBS website. George Mason just upset Michigan State but unfortunately UConn just finally took the lead over Albany.

J - hey, they weren't necessarily average, just places I can eat anywhere in the US. Gotta get into some Chicago local stuff. Kinzie's ChopHouse next Thursday on a work date - that should be interesting.

Ho-hum. Another quadrennium, another single-digit loss to Ohio State in the NCAA's first round.

Glad you're getting settled in up there. The boys had me up way too late last night, but at least they pulled it out and the ACC is now 4-0. Which is better than Big 8, Big 12, Big East, etc., can say.